"Wonder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... started. "You surprise me! I had no idea that Calcutta was as bad as you paint it. We must certainly get Nalini married at once. I wonder whether you know of a likely match for him. I ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... with the name of Tupia, or have in their possession (which many of them had) such articles, as they could only have got from that ship? To this it may be answered, that the name of Tupia was so popular among them when the Endeavour was here, that it would be no wonder if, at this time, it was known over great part of New Zealand, and as familiar to those who never saw him, as to those who did. Had ships, of any other nation whatever, arrived here, they would have equally enquired of them for Tupia. By the same way of reasoning, many of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... a wonder that with all her claims to respectability she had ever found her way to her present home. The walls of her room were decorated with silhouettes of this or that grand personage in whose service she had ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... me wonder," said the trapper, in a reflective tone, as if speaking rather to himself than to his companions, "why the Almighty has made the world so beautiful an' parfect an' allowed mankind to grow so ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... was the rage of celibacy; a rage which, however unnatural, will cease to excite our wonder, when we consider, that it was accounted by both sexes the sure and only infallible road to heaven and eternal happiness; and as such, it behoved the church vigorously to maintain and countenance it, which she did by beginning about this time to deny the liberty of marriage ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... to go to Italy, and I should not wonder if we were to come across a cousin of mine, Mrs. Hartley, who is now at Florence. You know ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... kerchiefs and greasy and mended garments that had descended through several generations. They had come down from their mountains to see the Corpus of Toledo, and they walked through the naves with wonder in their eyes, starting at the sound of their own footsteps, trembling each time the organ rolled, as though fearing to be turned out of that magic palace, which seemed to them like one in a fairy tale. The women pointed out with their fingers ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... "I wonder if Mr. Vyvian would let me do that. You see, he doesn't much like me. I expect I give him the creeps, like a toad...." Then, seeing Mrs. Johnson's relieved face cloud, he added, "Oh, well, I'll ask them to take me," and she smiled at him as at a good ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... had never encountered such a marvellously fascinating combination as was indicated by the clinging position of a minute ago and the erect one of the present moment. He tightened the girth with a pull that made the roan mare wonder if a steam-winch had hold of the end, and then had the pleasure of the little foot being placed in his hand for a moment, as he lifted the ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... think it wasn't stupidity. Maybe, like some men I know, he was too wise to work. I shouldn't wonder if he put it all over us with that intelligence of his. Maybe he figured it all out and decided that a licking now and again and no work was a whole lot better than work all the time and no licking. He was intelligent ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... moment Porthos entered. "PARDIEU!" said he, "here is a strange thing! Since when, I wonder, in the Musketeers, did they grant men leave of absence ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... would, perhaps, speak in his old way— laying down the law, as it were—and then, in a minute or two, he would come round and put his hand on our shoulders, and ask us in a low voice, if he had said anything to hurt us. I did not wonder at his speaking so to Deborah, for she was so clever; but I could not bear to hear him talking so ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and flowing over with wealth, I an old hag and poor as a barren rock, save for this bit of gold. The goddess is no respecter of persons. What can be the sin of this golden-haired beauty? Mine I know. I will unravel hers. Where does she go, I wonder? And with Chios? And he gave her the richest flowers. I will follow far behind. My sight is keen. I will know ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... read; "she combined with rare beauty a personality at once bewitching and natural. She gave life to her lines; she was deep, intense, true; she rose to her emotional heights in a burst of power which electrified the audience. We cannot but wonder why such an artist has remained ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... his wife drop in suddenly in the evening or to dine, it is monstrously inconvenient to have an oyster-shop round the corner whence to improvise a supper or a dinner. It would be so much better to have nothing but the village grocery a mile or two away. The advantages are conspicuous. I wonder the entire population of the city doesn't go ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... must follow. He became reassured when he observed how imperturbed everyone was. There were moments when the whole traffic seemed to become chaotic and the roads were choked, and then as suddenly as the congestion was created, it was relieved. He felt enthralled by this wonder of traffic, of great crowds moving with ease through a ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... you have heard nothing more about George Farringdon's son," she remarked, with apparent irrelevance. "I wonder if he will ever ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... that infernal blackguard," put in Good, "they are gone now. It was as much as I could do to sit still while that slaughter was going on. I tried to keep my eyes shut, but they would open just at the wrong time. I wonder where Infadoos is. Umbopa, my friend, you ought to be grateful to us; your skin came near to having an air-hole ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... natural tendency of the character of De Rohan to romantic and extraordinary intrigue is considered in connection with the associates he had gathered around him, the plot of the necklace ceases to be a source of wonder. At the time the Cardinal was most at a loss for means to meet the necessities of his extravagance, and to obtain some means of access to the Queen, the mountebank quack, Cagliostro, made his appearance in France. His fame had soon flown from Strasburg ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... over this puny, whimpering child, Arthur Agar. She never forgot a mother's selfish passion. She forgets nothing. When first he opened his little pink lids upon the world he looked round with a scared wonder in a pair of colourless blue-grey eyes; and that vague look of expectation never left his eyes in later life. It almost seemed as if the infant orbs could see ahead into the future—could discern the lowering hand ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... off into the darkness—but Virginia clung to me and wiped away my tears and would not let me go. She said she was afraid to be left alone, and wanted me with her—and that I was a good boy. She didn't wonder that my mother wanted to work for me—it must have been almost the ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... Fatherland of his), and, as he had now gone up and down through that island, and had witnessed its signs of substantial wealth, and of social order, he felt that both the public institutions of the Government and the private virtues of the people were of the most valuable. He did not wonder that Englishmen were warmly attached to their own country, and he would say that were he not an American he should wish to be an Englishman. He rejoiced, too, that there now exists the most cordial good feeling between the two countries, and trusted ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... having heard the last words. "Shocking tragedies! But let us be quick and get out, or else we shall not arrive in time for the first lunch. Now you are going to taste Madame Poulard's omelettes—a food ambrosial. You will wonder! They alone are worth coming to the Mont ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... truthfully be said that Theodore Roosevelt comes from a race of soldiers and statesmen, and that Dutch, Scotch, French, and Irish blood flows in his veins. This being so, it is no wonder that, when the Spanish-American War broke out, he closed his desk as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, saying, "My duty here is done; my place is in the field," and went forth to win glory on the battle-field of San ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. If Juliet talked like that dame did no wonder ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... Love, to her; the Relations with whom she went abroad every day, were fein to force her out, and when she went, 'twas the motive of Civility, and not Satisfaction, that made her go; whatever she saw, she beheld with no admiration, and nothing created wonder in her, tho' never so strange and Novel. She survey'd all things with an indifference, that tho' it was not sullen, was far from Transport, so that her evenness of Mind was infinitely admir'd and prais'd. And now it was, that, young as she was, her Conduct and Discretion appear'd equal to her Wit ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... more business-like. "I know it's hard to find—almost impossible. But would you take it, I wonder, if ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... produced some of his loftiest and best literature. Exile and imprisonment are such favorable conditions for letters, having done so much for authorship, that the wonder is the expedient has fallen into practical disuse. Banishment gave Seneca an opportunity to put into execution some of the ideas he had so long expressed concerning the simple life, and certain it is that the experience was not without ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... seemingly insoluble, questions, he at once presents the sole practical solution; there it is, ready at hand, and the members of the local council had not seen it; he makes them touch it with their fingers. They stand confounded and agape before the universal competence of this wonder genius. "He's more than a man" exclaimed the administrators of Dusseldorf to Beugnot.[4141] "Yes," replied Beugnot, "he's the devil!" In effect, he adds to mental ascendancy the ascendancy of force; we ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... twelve or fourteen guests cannot be served properly without two or three waiters—usually men at such large dinners—and additional help in the kitchen. So much thought and anxiety are required for the success of a home dinner party that it is small wonder many prefer to add a little to the expense, in cities at least, and order a dinner for the requisite number at hotel or club, where the responsibility rests with the management after the details of the menu are settled. Such a dinner is less of a compliment ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... compensation which so often manifests itself throughout nature. The higher mountains have their scenes of power and vastness, their blue precipices and cloud-like snows: why should they also have the best and fairest colors given to their foreground rocks, and overburden the human mind with wonder; while the less majestic scenery, tempting us to the observance of details for which amidst the higher mountains we had no admiration left, is yet, in the beauty of those very details, as inferior as it is ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... your wonder, this Will not allay it. Lord Talbot is lord steward! The stone, which the builders refused, is become the head-stone of the corner. My Lady Talbot, I suppose, would have found no charms in Cardinal Mazarin. As the Duke of Leeds was forced ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... lament that the Negroes of forty years after were both morally and intellectually inferior to their antebellum ancestors; and if college professors and lawyers and ministers of the Gospel wrote in this fashion one could not wonder that the politician made ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... But now to consider suspicions. He had heard rightly; Franke really wanted to bet all he had. But he could not but wonder whether Franke, by any possible chance, knew in advance the outcome of the affair in the trail. He had heard of such things, though never had he believed them possible. Yet he found himself troubled with insistent reminder that Franke had suggested this whole thing. Then suddenly ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... opportunities they enjoyed for peculation and the taking of bribes—considering, above all, the extreme difficulty of keeping a watchful eye upon officers scattered throughout the length and breadth of the land, the wonder is, not that irregularities crept in, but that they should have been, upon the whole, so few ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... creeping under the bottom rail of the fence, he raised his head a little, and looked round. He said, "I see there's another tenant here"—Bruin was then alive and was sitting on the top of his stump eating gum leaves—"I never saw that fellow so low down in the world before; I wonder what he is doing here; been lagged, I suppose for something or other. He is a stupid, anyway, and won't take any notice ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... insufferable as he showed me my duties. Besides my work in the cabin, with its four small state-rooms, I was supposed to be his assistant in the galley, and my colossal ignorance concerning such things as peeling potatoes or washing greasy pots was a source of unending and sarcastic wonder to him. He refused to take into consideration what I was, or, rather, what my life and the things I was accustomed to had been. This was part of the attitude he chose to adopt toward me; and I confess, ere the day was done, that I hated him with more lively feelings than ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... token of the highest elegance. For these ladies there was some attempt at elaborate and dainty cookery, signified by sweetbreads and a puffed omelette; and Mrs. Reverdy presided over a coffee-pot that was the wonder of the Elmfield household, and even a little matter of pride to the old squire himself; though he covered it with laughing at her mimic fires and doubtful steam engines. Gertrude Masters was still at Elmfield, the only one ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... likewise that he celebrated publicly the sacred rites of Isis [688], clad in a linen garment, such as is used by the worshippers of that goddess. These circumstances, I imagine, caused the world to wonder the more that his death was so little in character with his life. Many of the soldiers who were present, kissing and bedewing with their tears his hands and feet as he lay dead, and celebrating him as "a most gallant man, and an incomparable emperor," immediately ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... others) eight years later! Even then the whereabouts of the letters forming Fenn's first and second volumes, which he had presented in 1787 to King George III., was still unknown. 'The late Prince Consort . . . caused a careful search to be made for them, but it proved quite ineffectual.' No wonder, for in 1889 they came to light in ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... observer of human nature: and to one who, from early life, both by profession and inclination, a traveller, has wandered under every temperature of our eastern hemisphere, who has studied and admired the sex under every variety of character, no wonder that the contemplation of woman, as nature left her, inartificial, unsophisticated, simple, barbarous, and unadorned, should seem fraught with peculiar interest. Are there any who imagine that my loss of eye-sight must necessarily ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... "I wonder what her real position in this house can be," mused Locke, as he took his hat and went ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... his shoulder. Muriel was resting her brilliant cheek against the lapel of Maury Noble's dinner coat and her powdered left arm was apparently twisted around his head. One was impelled to wonder why she failed to seize the nape of his neck with her hand. Her eyes, turned ceiling-ward, rolled largely back and forth; her hips swayed, and as she danced she kept up a constant low singing. This at first seemed ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... been partially invaded by the omnivorous builder; nor are those portions of them which are still open available to the commonalty for purposes of pastime and sport. Under such circumstances who can wonder that they should lounge away their unemployed time in the skittle-grounds of ale-houses and gin-shops? or that their immorality should have increased with the enlargement of the town, and the compulsory discontinuance of their former healthful and harmless pastimes? ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various
... she exclaimed, generously. "That new hat's a great success. Didn't I tell you mauve was your colour? Turn round. Yes, dear, you look charming. Where in the world, I wonder, did you all get that grand look of yours from?—I don't mean your good looks merely, but that look of distinction. Your father and mother have it too; but where did they get it from? You're a ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... as he completed the robbery, and was got safe out of town, he went directly to Chester, that he might appear fine (as he himself said) at a place where he was known. His precaution being so little, there is no wonder that he was taken, or that the fact appearing plain, he should be ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... a page of The Vicar of Wakefield. Also during three months I had one of them for my vis-a-vis at table, and the quantity of household bread, butter, and stewed fruit, she would habitually consume at "second dejeuner" was a real world's wonder—to be exceeded only by the fact of her actually pocketing slices she could not eat. Here be truths—wholesome ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... happened. She would have bought an evening paper to read in the train. By Jove, I wonder if she got hold of the one that had the poem about it. One chappie was so carried away by the beauty of the episode that he treated it in verse. I think we ought to look in ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Lovelle had been right and that it was none of the Almighty's giving. Now in the sharp autumn morning he felt its justice. A cloud had come over his cheerful soul. "If only I knowed about Jim," he muttered "I wonder if I'll ever clap eyes or his old face again." Never before had he known such acute anxiety. Pioneers are wont to trust each other and in their wild risks assume that the odd chance is on their side. But now black forebodings possessed ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... 1909 went far beyond finance. Any one with a knowledge of land purchase law knows that the measure of 1909 contained innumerable provisions of a technical character calculated to make the free sale between landlord and tenant difficult, and in respect of a large portion of Ireland impossible. No wonder it was welcomed by the Irish Nationalist Party, since it did so much to restore them to their self-elected position of counsellors and arbiters in the affairs of the tenants. And Ulster Unionists for declining to accede to this ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... very bad and low-caste! No wonder the Presence was disturbed and is speckled. Three sets of doolie-bearers came to the bungalow late last night when I was sleeping outside, and said that it was their custom to rest in the rooms set apart for the English people! ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... the metal, and when this dried it was dabbed, or patted, with another clean piece of waste also dipped in the hot tallow, which gave the metal a good imitation of hoar frost; the brass and copper work were burnished and shone like gold. The boat drill and fire drill create some wonder for the passengers, as they always happen unexpectedly; the former begins in this way: a large gong is rapidly hit with a mallet by the quartermaster, and all those stokers and sailors, who belong to the seventeen boats hanging from ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... would come dressed ready for the theatre, an immaculate beau of the 'fifties, his top coat with waist and skirts, his opera hat made to special order by a Bond Street expert on an 1850 last. And then, before setting off, he would talk of some fellow-artist who was a little down and out, and wonder whether some of his drawings might not be bought at a few guineas apiece. Then to book, as it were, such an order gave salt to his evening, and if the evening meant contact with some of his own exquisite work, a word of admiration was taken with that wistful ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... I wonder what happened to this fellow," said Farmer Brown's boy, turning Unc' Billy over with the toe of one foot. "He certainly is dead enough, whatever killed him. I wonder what he was doing ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... declined any pecuniary offerings from these despised ones; and yet it has never deemed it its province or duty to impart its religious blessings to them. It has denied to them instruction, comfort and salvation. Is it a wonder that most of the people were almost on a level with brutes so far as thoughts of the highest interests of the soul are concerned? These are the people whom Christianity has delighted to rescue from their thralldom and to build up in religious ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... seen a water baby? Did you put it in a bottle? Did it wonder if it could get out? Can I see it some day? ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... work, Drummond," Lindsay said, as hour after hour passed. "I should not like to have anything to do with the king, just at present. It is easy to see how fidgety he is, and no wonder. For aught we know there may be only three or four thousand men facing us and, while we are waiting here, the whole Austrian army may have crossed over again, and be marching up the river bank to form a junction with the Saxons; ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... ever been too insensible, and you must not wonder if, to repair the insult, Love now pays himself with usury for that which your soul ought to have granted him. The time is come in which your lips must breathe those sighs so long restrained; and ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... blood, because he could not beat them when they had arms in their hands. Had it not been for him, the finest young man Lancashire ever bred would have been alive and merry with his noble father at this moment. I don't wonder Your Reverence weeps and wrings your hands. I would have died a thousand times to save him; and if ever I may shew my face in the open day-light again, I'll go to Pembroke and beg Dr. Lloyd to let me take Fido to Mistress ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... "I wonder whether it was Lena-Wingo who did that," mused the youth, raising his head and peering through the undergrowth at the form. "Captain Bagley believed so, and I guess he was right, for I can't think of any one else who would ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... in brain-surgery have, in a measure, diminished the interest and wonder of some of the older instances of major injuries of the cerebral contents with unimportant after-results, and in reviewing the older cases we must remember that the recoveries were made under the most unfavorable conditions, and without ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... When I had stretched out on the soft bed of pine-needles with my rifle close by, and was all snug and warm under the heavy blanket, it seemed that nothing was so far away from me as sleep. The wonder of my situation kept me wide awake, my eyes on the dim huge pines and the glimmer of stars, and my ears open to the rush and roar of the wind, every sense alert. Hours must have passed as I lay there living over the things that had happened and trying to think out what ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... he did not come running all aglow and out of breath to Arthur, with eager questions about something or other which he had just seen, and then dash off again into the forest without waiting for a reply, where fresh explosions of admiration or wonder, would soon announce new, and if possible, still ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... the heart." It is only the actions of others which we see for the most part, and since there are numberless ways of doing wrong, and but one of doing right, and numberless ways too of regarding and judging the conduct of others, no wonder that even the better sort of men, much more the generality, are, and seem to be, so sinful. God only sees the circumstances under which a man acts, and why he acts in this way and not in that. God only sees perfectly ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... the young man's story and knew the passion and transport and love lowe that afflicted him, he was moved to compassion and wonder and said, "Glory be to Allah, who hath appointed to every effect a cause!" Then they craved the young man's permission to depart; which being granted, they took leave of him, the Caliph purposing to do him justice meet, and him with the utmost munificence ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... were sometimes a hundred robins at once about the Common and Garden, in the time of the vernal migration. By day they were scattered over the lawns; but at sunset they gathered habitually in two or three contiguous trees, not far from the Frog Pond and the Beacon Street Mall (I wonder whether the same trees are still in use for the same purpose), where, after much noise and some singing, they retired to rest,—if going to sleep in a leafless treetop can be ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... doubtless wonder what I got out of all this, and the answer is nothing. The Emperor, before he removed Colonel de La Nougarde from the command of the regiment and either made him a general or head of a legion of gendarmes, ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... standing upon the same clods which would be reddened, at his next coming, with his heart's blood; and that the trenches were to yawn beneath his hoofs, to swallow himself and his steed,—if I had foretold these things as they were to occur, I wonder if the "pause before the storm" would have been less awful, and our ride campward less sedate. Poor Heath! Gallant New Englander! he called at my bedside, the sixth day following, as I lay full of pain, fear, and fever, and after he bade me good by, I heard his horse's hoofs ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... to which team would win the game, but Billy Dibble, aided by the wonderful interference on the part of Babe Eddie, who afterward played end on the Yale team, and Emerson, who, had he gone to college, would have been a wonder, made a touchdown. George Cadwalader with his sure right foot made the score 12 to 6. Enthusiasm was at its height. Andover rooters were calling upon their team to tie the score. A touchdown and goal would mean a tie. ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... truly, Captain Raleigh," says the dingy officer to the gay one. "I wonder how, having once escaped from it to Whitehall, you have the courage to come back and spoil that gay ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... ye gae me sic a fleg!" said Donal. "But, losh! they hae made a gentleman o' ye a'ready!" he added, holding him at arms length, and regarding him with wonder and admiration. ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... months I have not had a creature in my house,' said Madame Bonnemain, and her face grew graver and older in its outline,—'positively not a creature. Bruges has gone down as a place for English residents, and I don't wonder at it.' ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... it was that she had pondered over so long as she lay awake the evening before,—it was the names of the calves. In spite of all her pondering she had got no farther than to wonder whether the cow with the red sides and white head and the gentle but bright-looking face should not be called Bliros. That idea, however, she had given up; it seemed to her that only one cow in ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... might be attacked at once, and thus discover the real weakness of their forces. The obstinate struggle for the barbacan, the strongest point of the castle, had been welcomed with joy by the Scotch, for there they could overlook every movement of the besiegers. Some wonder it did cause that such renowned knights as the earls were known to be, should not endeavor to throw them off their guard by a division of attack; but this wonder could not take from ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... upon the placid surface of Lake Tahoe, the largest of the "Gems of the Sierra"—nestled, as it is, amidst a huge amphitheater of mountain peaks—it is difficult to say whether we are more powerfully impressed with the genuine childlike awe and wonder inspired by the contemplation of the noble grandeur of nature, or with the calmer and more gentle sense of the beautiful produced by the less imposing aspects of the surrounding scenery. On the one hand crag and beetling cliff sweeping ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... said William; "and I do not wonder that so many perish in the ordeal. Yet I know that people need not fall, if they will open their eyes, and act out their country nature. Evil affords a high and noble discipline when we meet it like men, and overcome ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... lingering inveterately amongst nurses, and other ignorant persons—there prevailed a notion that 'slops' must be the proper resource of the valetudinarian; and the same erroneous notion appears in the common expression of ignorant wonder at the sort of breakfasts usual amongst women of rank in the times of Queen Elizabeth. 'What robust stomachs they must have had, to support such solid meals!' As to the question of fact, whether the stomachs were more or less robust in those days than at the present, there is no ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... altogether factitious. For, discovering how much this quondam Puritan was interested in the attributes of long-chronicled houses, a reflected interest in himself arose in his own soul, and he began to wonder why he had not prized these things before. Till now disgusted by the failure of his family to hold its own in the turmoil between ancient and modern, he had grown to undervalue its past prestige; and it was with corrective ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... No wonder there was fever in the town, I thought, as I picked my way among the heaps of garbage and refuse lying out in the streets. The most hideous old women I ever saw, wrinkled over every inch of their skin, blear-eyed, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... trembling glow through the room of a hut on a Voshti hill, and the smell of burning fir and camphire wood filtered through the air with a sleepy sweetness. So delicate and faint between the quilts lay the young mother, the little Fanchon, a shining wonder still in her face, and the exquisite touch of birth on her—for when a child is born the mother also is born again. So still she lay until one who gave her into the world stooped, and drawing open the linen at her breast, nestled a little life there, which presently gave a tiny ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... The sudden apparition of Ah Fe linked her again with her past life at Fiddletown. Over the dreary interval between, she was now wandering,—a journey so piteous, wilful, thorny, and useless, that it was no wonder that at last Carry stopped suddenly in the midst of her voluble confidences to throw her small arms around the woman's neck, and bid ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... that ladder once," soliloquized Dick. "Papa took me. It was velly nice up there. I wiss Papa would take me again. Mally, she said it was dangewous. I wonder why she said it was dangewous? Mally's a very funny girl, I think. She didn't ought to put me to bed so early. I can't go to sleep at all. Perhaps I sha'n't ever go to sleep, not till ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... superstitious, I wonder? Do they believe in charms? If not what induces so many birds that build in holes in banks to select out of the infinite variety of things, organic or inorganic, pieces of snake-skin for their nests? They are at ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... at one time they had cherished a degree of affection for each other; but when the merry, high-spirited girl returned from London changed into a calculating woman, Geoffrey was bound up, mind and body, in his mine, and Millicent began to wonder whether, with her advantages, she might not do better than to marry a dalesman burdened by heavy debts. They formed a curious contrast, the man brown-haired, brown-eyed, hard-handed, rugged of feature, and sometimes rugged of speech; and the dainty woman who appeared ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... movement, and indicate a growing self-respect and self-assertion in the women of this generation. But we have the usual array of objectors to meet and answer. One correspondent conjures us to suspend the work, as it is "ridiculous" for "women to attempt the revision of the Scriptures." I wonder if any man wrote to the late revising committee of Divines to stop their work on the ground that it was ridiculous for men to revise the Bible. Why is it more ridiculous for women to protest against ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... ourselves to consider the effects of time, that things necessary and certain often surprise us like unexpected contingencies. We leave the beauty in her bloom, and, after an absence of twenty years, wonder, at our return, to find her faded. We meet those whom we left children, and can scarcely persuade ourselves to treat them as men. The traveller visits in age those countries through which he rambled in his youth, and hopes ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... lesson will convey conclusively to any thinking mind what heredity really means. After a brief study of this interesting subject the importance of the "Law of the Cross-Transmission of Characteristics" will become amply apparent and the intelligent reader will undoubtedly wonder why it has not been applied and acknowledged long ago. For answer, I must refer you to the schools, whose policy it has ever been to, at any rate, abstain from assisting, if not absolutely to diplomatically hinder the development of fresh scientific discoveries. But the time ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... you may wonder how I can have the Vanity to offer my self as a Candidate, which I now do, to a Society, where the SPECTATOR and Hecatissa have been admitted with so much Applause. I don't want to be put in mind how very Defective I am in every thing ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... hunger among the 800,000 inhabitants of Paris, between last year's corn that was exhausted, and the new harvest that was not yet ground. Nobody, says Dumont, could wonder if so much suffering led to tumult. The suffering was due to poverty more than to scarcity; but Lafayette asserted that above L2000 a week were paid to bakers, or to millers, to create discontent by shortening supplies. There were people who thought that money ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... that night of wonder, of violence, and of storm, she lay against his heart, her arms wound about his neck with a closeness which even ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... might offer a livelihood to the unfortunate. The small William Gilmore, left in the care of his grandmother, was apprenticed to a druggist and became a familiar figure on the streets of Charleston as he came and went on his round of errands. Small wonder that the Queen of the Sea, having swallowed his pills and powders in those early days, had little taste for his literary output in ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... here With a weird upon my life, When the clansmen shout for battle And the war-swords clash in strife? I cannae joy at feast, I cannae sleep in bed, For the wonder of the word And the warning of the dead. It sings in my sleeping ears, It hums in my waking head, The name—Ticonderoga, The utterance of the dead. Then up, and with the fighting men To march away from here, Till the cry of ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you, you must say, "Wake up!" to your mind. It is the eager spirit of inquiry that conquers difficulties and gains knowledge. In another preface I reminded you that in all the faery stories the youngest brother was the one who always said, "I wonder!" and he it was who triumphed over all the others. You are holding between these crimson covers fables from some of the oldest and most valuable books the world has ever known. The "Hitopadesa" was a very fountain of riches, as old as the hills themselves, precious and inexhaustible. In its ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... continued their rounds, followed by the correct head nurse. When they reached the end of the ward, Dr. Sommers remarked disconnectedly: "No. 8 there, the man with the gun-shot wounds, will get well, I think; but I shouldn't wonder if mental complications followed. I have seen cases like that at the Bicetre, where operations on an alcoholic patient produced paresis. The man got well," he added harshly, as if kicking aside some dull formula; "but he ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... I greatly wonder that the hallowed memory of this loving institution has so far escaped the popular fancy as to be left "unwept, unhonored and unsung." That it was inspirational might be shown from the case of ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... carkasse, but vnmaimed minde, Three dayes hee breath'd, yet neuer spake he ought, Albe his foes were humble, sad, and kinde; The fourth came downe the Lambe that all souls bot, And his pure part, from worser parts refind, Bearing his spirite vp to the loftie skyes, Leauing his body, wonder to wonders eyes. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... ornamental an appendage, they plait it into numerous little tails. Some coquettishly allow these tails to droop all about their head; others twist them together into a band or bunch, covering the top of the head like a cap. No wonder that much time is spent in the preparation of so complex a head-gear; but then, on the other hand, when once made up it will last ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... to suppose she was here," he said. "That was our bargain. But I begin to believe now that she was mostly in London. One can't wonder at it—she ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... put up a rotten game to-day," ruminated Tom. "I don't wonder that the coach was sore. We ought to have eaten those fellows up, but they walked all over us. What was the ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... "I wonder if I'm very stupid," thought the boy. He could hear the kitchen door open, as Hare came back into the house, and began talking to his wife in low tones. He could distinguish but one word. ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... minister,' he said, musingly. 'I can guess, then, what like she is—prim and demure, like a caricature by Cham. In that case she will be safe from me, for I could never bear an ugly woman. By the way, I wonder if ugly women think themselves pretty; their mirrors must lie most obligingly if they do. There was Adele, she was decidedly plain, not to say ugly, and yet so brilliant in her talk. I was sorry she died; yes, even though she was the cause ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... said, gloomily. "You keep me to the work. I do not hate him as you do—but he is an enemy, and I will kill him. Why do I yield to you, and obey you thus? What makes me love you, I wonder!" ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... fancies, the object of wonder was a young maiden of the noblesse, who, for imputed family crimes, had hid herself in so humble a quarter. Sometimes I pictured the occupant of the chamber as the suffering daughter of some miserly parent, with trace of noble blood—filial, yet dependent ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... rushed rapidly over the prairies, Luke Robbins turned to his young companion and said, "Our journey thus far has been adventurous. I wonder what lies before us?" ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... name signifies Wonder) typifies that peculiar, translucent condition of the surface of the sea when it reflects, mirror-like, various images, and appears to hold in its transparent embrace the flaming stars and illuminated cities, which are so frequently reflected on its ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... "I wonder what has become of our horses," Jean said, as he prepared to start. "We shall never hear any more of those we left at Nantes. We must go on foot this time, and trust to getting hold of a couple of horses, the first time ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... good people, but they must have carried simplicity and credulity to the limit. They would stick a pin in my arm and bear on it until they drove it a third of its length in, and then be lost in wonder that by a mere exercise of will-power the professor could turn my arm to iron and make it insensible to pain. Whereas it was not insensible at all; I was suffering ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... you dirty deceitful young drab. The last time as ever I see him, poor thing; was with my own blessed Motherly eyes, Sitting as good as gold in the gutter, a-playing at making little dirt pies. I wonder he left the court where he was better off than all the other young boys, With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster-shells, and a dead kitten by way of toys. When his father comes home, and he always comes home as sure as ever the clock strikes one, He'll be rampant, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... distinguished in our religion." The caliph could not forbear laughing at my adventure; and instead of treating me as a prattling fellow, as this lame young man did, he admired my discretion and taciturnity. "Commander of the faithful," I resumed, "your majesty need not wonder at my silence on such an occasion, as would have made another apt to speak. I make a particular profession of holding my peace, and on that account have acquired the glorious title of Silent; by which I am distinguished ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... word that she mentioned my appointment, and repeated the warning I had given her to both the daughters. The elder of the two shrinks—and who can wonder at it?—from any discussion connected with the future which requires her presence so soon as the day after the funeral. The younger one appears to have expressed no opinion on the subject. As I understand it, she suffers ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... was going on, D'Artagnan remained with open mouth and a confused gaze. Everything had turned out so differently from what he expected that he was stupefied with wonder. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... good deal like Cave Island," he muttered, as he advanced. "That was honeycombed with caves and so is this. No wonder they have landslides here. The ground and rocks are bound to settle, with so ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... student; pride in country, patriotism, ambition, are looked on as dangerous, and English, instead of Indian, Ideals are exalted; the blessings of a foreign rule and the incapacity of Indians to manage their own affairs are constantly inculcated. What wonder that boys thus trained often turn out, as men, time-servers and sycophants, and, finding their legitimate ambitions frustrated, become selfish and care little for the public weal? Their own inferiority has been so driven into them during their most impressionable years, that they ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant
... notice to correspondents in PUNCH?" quoth Sib.—"I do," replied Hardinge, "and I wonder people should send them such trash."—"Pooh!" retorted the punster—"Pooh! you know that wherever PUNCH is to be found, there are always ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... you please, if a steel bridge couldn't be made in a single span, and I said, yes, but it would take too long. We only had a few days. 'Well,' he says, 'Mr. Bannon, I'll give you a permit.' And that's what he gave me. I bet he's grinning yet. I wonder if he'll grin so much about three days ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... condition of your vessel and whether it would be like to sink if a storm came on. I could not help thinking that, as far as I knew anything about ships, you'd be likely to float for weeks after we'd gone down, but I didn't say that to her. And then she began to wonder if you had understood that she had received your message and was glad to get it. And I told her over and over and over again that you must have heard me, for I screamed my very loudest. I am very glad that I didn't know that you only ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... a great deal of wind to day, but it did not come in puffs, endangering our tents. I sometimes wonder, however, how the flimsy huts of which part of Tintalous is composed are not swept away. They are made of the dry stalk of that excellent herb bou rekabah, ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... was quite natural, and which he would have continued for an hour in ordinary circumstances, without thinking anything about it, soon alarmed him. It seemed as if people looked at him, and two persons stopping to talk made him wonder if they spoke of him. Why did they not continue their way? Why, from time to time, did they ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... this especially in connection with the written language, the far-famed "Chinese Character," or ideograph. My Chinese dictionary contains over 50,000 different characters. The task of learning them is appalling. How the Japanese or Chinese do it is to us a constant wonder. We assume at once their possession of astonishing memories. We argue that, for hundreds of years, each generation has been developing powers of memory through efforts to conquer this cumbersome contrivance ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick |
